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Sausage Casserole Recipe

- Alex 4 Comments

Hairy Bikers' Sausage and bean casserole

Another hearty dinner for you – one that’s perfect to make on the weekend and have stored up for a mid week dinner.

This recipe comes from the Hairy Bikers’ Mums Still Know Best – a book that’s choc full of very tasty looking, very British recipes.

This is a great recipe because you don’t need to worry too much about quantities. You’ll know if you love beans – and if you don’t, well then you should leave them out and, if you can be bothered, substitute with something else.

Begin by heating some oil in your favourite casserole dish. Chop the sausages into large chunks and fry until browned. Remove from the pan, and fry up some chopped bacon. When that begins to crisp up, remove that and set aside with the sausages.

In the pan (which by now should have a lovely fatty, meaty bottom), fry some finely sliced onion. As the onion softens, add garlic to taste and fry for a couple of minutes more. Now add in chilli powder (or smoked paprika) and cook for a few seconds longer to cook out the spice.

Now add in a tin of crushed tomatoes (note – try to buy Australian!), some chicken stock, tomato purée, Worcestershire sauce, brown sugar and some dried oregano or thyme. If you’re cooking for two people, let’s say you’re using 6 sausages (you want to have leftovers, trust me), so use 300mL chicken stock, 2 tbsp tomato purée, 1 tbsp of Worcestershire sauce and sugar to taste (I always use far less than specified in recipes so let’s say 1 tsp).

Bring this mix to a simmer and add the sausages and bacon back into the pan. Add enough water (or a 50-50 water/white wine mix) to cover everything.

Partially cover the pan and simmer for at least 20 minutes. When you’re ready to eat, drain and rinse a can of butter beans or cannellini beans and add the beans to the stew. Cook for a further 10 minutes (minimum) and serve with plenty of piping hot, buttery mash.

The picture of this casserole in the book shows a very dry looking dish. Personally, I’m a big fan of plenty of sauce – if things are looking too dry for your tastes you can add passata or stock or more wine. However, if you want less sauce, then hold back on adding all the stock and only add as much liquid as you feel necessary.

This is one of those dishes that keeps and reheats well – there’ll be no problem making it on a Sunday and having it for Tuesday supper (not to mention left overs for lunch the next day).

As a bonus, it’s almost a one pot dish and it’s super easy. Well done, Dave and Si!

Fennel and Vegetable Soup Recipe

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I’m not really sorry to be posting another soup recipe:  it is cold and this one is incredibly easy and quick.

There’s no blitzing and I reckon it was ready for the table in under half an hour. Plus, it makes use of a very seasonal (and that means CHEAP!) ingredient: fennel.

The original recipe is a fennel minestrone, by Arthur Potts Dawson, an eco friendly British chef.

I tweaked quantities quite a bit and also thought that it would be far easier to chop the vegetables, rather than grate them (grating creates washing up!). I was also concerned that if the vegetables were grated the finished product could look a bit … mushy.

To begin – heat some olive oil in your favourite soup making pan and gently sauté 1 finely chopped leek.

I had one giant fennel (bought for the princely sum of 98 cents!) so I cut that in half – which worked out at about 400g of fennel (yes, it was huge) – and roughly chopped it, and then added to the leek.

I then added two handfuls of risoni pasta (I have small hands). I happened to have risoni but you could use any shape or break up spaghetti or fettucine. Really – put in as much as you want but remember that it does expand when it cooks and it will thicken up the soup.

Finally, add stock (I used some chicken stock we had leftover!) and cook. You only need to cook until the pasta is done which is what makes this soup so quick.

Add a coarsely chopped courgette/zucchini about 5 minutes before you’re ready to serve – you don’t want that to turn to mush.

Dawson’s recipe uses a pangritata to finish the dish but I really couldn’t be bothered going outside. However, I did have a jar of pesto open in the fridge, so I stirred a generous teaspoon of that through my bowl.

Finally, a sprinkle of pepper and salt and you have a super healthy, super cheap and super tasty meal in under 30 minutes. No excuses for takeaway!

Spiced Cauliflower

- Alex 2 Comments


spiced cauliflower

My newest cookbook is The Hairy Bikers’ Best-Loved Recipes. I’ve read through it (yes, I do do that) a couple of times and noted lots of recipes I’m keen to try.

The cooler weather in Adelaide has meant we’ve started thinking about stews, so later in the week you will be able to read all about Dave and Si’s sausage and bean stew.  But let’s start with what we served as a side to it – spiced cauliflower.

I love all brassicas (broccoli and brussel sprouts are two of my all time favourite vegetables) but Andy finds cauliflower really boring. He doesn’t even really like cauliflower cheese! We had a small piece in the fridge that I was keen to use up and this recipe, although for a whole head, is easy enough to shrink to fit.

Begin by heating some oil in a frying pan or (in my case) wok. Add some chilli flakes (or ground chilli), ground cumin, ground coriander, turmeric and freshly ground black pepper. For a whole head, the recipe calls for 2tsp of each spice – but really it’s a case of using however much you like.

Fry the spices for a few moments then add your cauliflower florets and stir fry, ensuring the florets are well coated with the spice mix. You can buy your spices from https://ravensoriginal.com/ this website. 

If you have some tamarind paste, stir it into some boiling water (as a rough guide, you’ll need at 250mL for one head of cauliflower) and pour this into the pan.  If you don’t, just use the boiling water.  Add a splash of vinegar and a pinch of salt and then pop on a lid and cook until the cauliflower is tender.  Remove the lid when it’s almost done so any excess liquid can evaporate off.

Don’t be tempted to skip the vinegar – particularly if you don’t have tamarind.  With this dish, it’s really important you have the sour, acidic component to set up the spices.  And yes – this is spicy, but you can always cut out or reduce the amount of chilli you put in.

Delicious and too easy!